How Society Works - Social Order by Self-Organization (Chapter 5 of Digital Society)

Digital Society, Forthcoming

21 Pages Posted: 23 Nov 2014

See all articles by Dirk Helbing

Dirk Helbing

ETH Zürich - Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (GESS)

Date Written: November 22, 2014

Abstract

The invention of laws and regulations is celebrated as great success principle of societies and they are, of course, important. However, a major part of social order is based on self-organization, which builds on simple social mechanism. These mechanisms have evolved over historical times and are the basis of the success or failure of civilizations. Currently, many people oppose globalization, because traditional social mechanisms fail to create cooperation and social order under globalized conditions that are increasingly characterized by homogeneous or random interactions. However, I will show that there are other social mechanisms such as reputation systems, which will work in a globalized world, too.

Keywords: Self-organization, cooperation, globalization, tragedy of the commons, moral behavior, reputation systems, mechanism design, social information technologies

JEL Classification: A00

Suggested Citation

Helbing, Dirk, How Society Works - Social Order by Self-Organization (Chapter 5 of Digital Society) (November 22, 2014). Digital Society, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2529431

Dirk Helbing (Contact Author)

ETH Zürich - Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (GESS) ( email )

ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Clausiusstrasse 50
Zurich, 8092
Switzerland

HOME PAGE: http://www.coss.ethz.ch

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